Kate Murphy

Dr Kate M Murphy (aka Ellis Hutch) is an artist, writer and teacher living and working on unceeded Arrerente country with close ties and current projects continuing on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. Kate makes drawings, videos, installations, performances and soundscapes; both independently and in collaboration. She takes a curious and playful approach to investigating how people establish social relationships and transform their environments to create inhabitable spaces. She is fascinated with how we make ourselves ‘at home’ as individuals and communities while navigating the complexities of our contemporary worlds and colonial histories. ​

​In 2021 Kate was appointed as one of two inaugural Creatives in Residence in the ACT Government and is developing a project entitled Tracing conversations with ACT Health Directorate Covid Response staff.  Kate has worked across a wide range of arts organisations from Craft ACT to the National Gallery of Australia, working for many years as a sessional lecturer at the ANU School of Art and Design. Currently she is lectures in Visual Arts at Charles Darwin University in Mparntwe/Alice Springs. ​

​Kate’s research and teaching are informed by the following principles:​
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Embodied and action-centred investigation: research and learning occurs through active-embodied engagement with subjects and source materials and employs thinking-in-movement, deep listening, and speculative play as modes of investigation. ​

​In relation – conversation and co-creation: researching, teaching, and learning occurs within a network of relationships, sensitive to context, situated on country, and subject to dynamic intersubjective politics, collaboration, and co-design.​

​Critical making – practice as research: making is investigative and analytical; conducted across media and relevant discipline areas. The research is partial, fragmentary, and organic: there is space for wonder, improvisation, speculation and play to generate unpredicted outcomes. ​

Website: www.ellishutch.space